Bringing Privacy, Safety, and Well-being Together at FPF

FPF’s youth policy work is growing. For more than 18 years, FPF has been a recognized leader in youth privacy. Our work and partnerships have helped inform this sector, from guidance on COPPA to advancing global frameworks for responsible data use by schools and platforms. Now we are broadening and deepening that focus. Privacy, safety, and well-being are not separate conversations. They are connected, and they show up across many products, platforms, and policy decisions. Holly Hawkins, FPF’s Director for Youth Policy, is leading that expansion.

Holly has worked on young people’s experiences online for more than three decades. Her work started at America Online (AOL) in the early days of the consumer internet and continued through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, iKeepSafe, Meta, and Amazon. We asked Holly five questions about that path, what wellbeing means next to privacy and safety, and where FPF’s youth work is going.

What drew you to this work, and how has working across nonprofits and tech companies shaped your approach?

The positive impact this work has on young people’s lives, helping keep them safe both online and offline, inspires me. I started in the early 1990s at AOL, as families were just discovering the internet. To put that time into perspective, most of our members connected through slow 2400-baud dial-up modems, and reaching 5,000 people online at the same time, in the summer of 1993, was a major milestone.

As more families came online, problems involving children began to show up. I developed and supported AOL’s user content and conduct policies, program standards, and online enforcement. Our goal was to make AOL safer for young users by addressing both the content on the service and how people behaved there. There was no existing framework to follow, so we built the protections, processes, and policies ourselves, and many of them became standard practice across the industry. We were also the first internet service provider to work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Together, we set up reporting systems and partnerships that still help protect children today.

Working at both nonprofits and tech companies shaped how I approach policy. At nonprofits, I saw the harms young people face and how those harms play out in their lives. At tech companies, I saw what solutions are technically possible and what it takes to build them. I try to bring both into my work, so that policies hold up in the products young people actually use. 

What’s one thing about youth digital privacy, safety, and well-being right now that you’re optimistic about?

Even as some countries have adopted bans, I’m optimistic that the debates around them are putting more emphasis on design. We are asking not only whether young people should be on a service, but also how it should be designed to help protect their privacy, safety, and overall well-being. Policymakers, companies, researchers, and civil society are looking more closely at how products used by young people work. That includes how they’re built, what defaults are set, what data is collected and why, and how features affect young people’s wellbeing over time. This offers an alternative to blanket approaches and leads to protections that match the level of risk.

What’s a youth issue that will become a much bigger deal in the next few years, but isn’t getting much attention yet?

One issue I expect to grow is how AI systems make and use inferences about young people. Based on conversations and behavior, a system might infer a young person’s mood, interests, abilities, or vulnerabilities. Those inferences may reflect only a passing moment, or they could be incorrect, yet they could still shape the recommendations and opportunities young people receive. This will matter even more as young people start using AI agents that act on their behalf. For example, a system could steer a young person away from an opportunity because it inferred they were anxious or unlikely to succeed. 

I expect youth policy debates over the next few years to focus on what systems should be allowed to infer about young people, and how those inferences can be used. That raises questions for companies, such as which inferences are appropriate to act on and under what circumstances, how young people can see and correct them, and how to keep a temporary state from shaping their opportunities. 

FPF’s youth policy work has traditionally centered on privacy. What does “well-being” mean to you alongside privacy and safety, and why does it belong in the same conversation?

Privacy and safety for youth often focuses on preventing bad outcomes, such as personal data being misused or a child being harmed. I believe wellbeing looks at a young person’s experience online and whether it supports their ability to thrive. It includes their health, development, relationships, sense of who they are, and ability to make their own choices. 

That’s my working answer, but the definition of well-being is something we’re actively looking at. Public health, academic research, and clinical practice each define it differently. Some focus on preventing harm; others on helping young people flourish. We’re looking across those definitions to build a framing that’s useful for the people designing products and setting policy. I’ll be sharing more in an upcoming post.

Well-being belongs in the same conversation as privacy and safety because the same design decisions affect all three. An age check can improve safety while collecting more personal data. A personalized feed can be designed to with youth well-being in mind, for engagement that supports learning or family connections, or it can be designed solely for enaggement. Looking at well-being alongside privacy and safety gives a fuller picture of how a product affects young people and can lead to better design and policy decisions. 

What excites you about leading this expanded approach at FPF, and what’s your vision for where FPF’s youth policy work goes from here?

The rapid change we’re seeing with AI feels a lot like the early days of the internet, and the decisions made now will shape young people’s experiences for years. What excites me is that FPF can bring companies, regulators, academics, and civil society to the same table to develop practical frameworks that inform policy and help protect young people.

Our Personalization and Youth Online report shows what this looks like in practice. Rather than treating personalization as all good or all bad, it identifies five types of risk and separates basic, functional personalization from higher-impact uses. That helps companies match safeguards to the actual risk. We then brought together industry and civil society voices to discuss how those ideas apply to real products.

My vision is to apply this approach across the full range of youth issues. That means:

• Treating privacy, safety, and wellbeing as connected, with guidance that helps stakeholders see and weigh the trade-offs between them.
• Staying ahead of emerging issues, from personalization and AI chatbots to the inferences AI systems make about young people.
• Producing frameworks, analysis, and resources that product, legal, and policy teams can use, and that help inform policymakers.
• Keeping a global view, so our guidance works for companies operating across many jurisdictions, not just one.

Ultimately, the goal is to help shape technology that supports young people’s ability to thrive, with privacy, safety, and well-being built in from the start.

Stay connected

To follow FPF’s youth policy work, check out the FPF Youth Policy & Governance page and watch for more on age assurance, personalization, and youth wellbeing in the months ahead.